


A Ghost in Starling City

by celeste9



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Plot, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3822448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Arrow ends up on the trail of what appearances suggest is an actual ghost, help arrives in the form of a couple of ghost hunting brothers. Felicity is pretty sure this isn't what she signed up for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ghost in Starling City

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fic for the April hc_bingo challenge, which was for a crossover. Out of my given prompts I mostly used 'forced to participate in illegal/hurtful activity', with a bit of 'fighting' and just a hint of 'lost childhood'. Big thank you to fififolle, who bravely took this on to beta in spite of not watching Supernatural. Obviously all remaining mistakes are mine, particularly where it comes to Sam and Dean. Set some time post season 2 for Arrow and in the later seasons of Supernatural.
> 
> Warning for reference to a past suicide.

Things had been quiet in Starling City lately (not that Felicity was complaining), which meant Oliver was getting antsy. Felicity knew that was why he was so eager to look into a murder. It had taken place under unusual circumstances, to be fair, but it was still something that seemed more suited to Captain Lance than to the Arrow.

“I don’t think this is our sort of thing,” Felicity said.

“It happened in our city, so it’s our sort of thing,” Oliver said as he grabbed his bow.

Roy only looked at her and shrugged, as if to say, ‘I do what he does,’ while Diggle said, “I’m inclined to agree with you, Felicity, but, hey. What do I know?”

Felicity sighed and settled in for another night of monitoring the rest of Team Arrow. Not that they called themselves that.

Not in front of Oliver, anyway.

-

Half an hour later Felicity was listening over the comms when she heard Roy say, “What the--”

“What? What’s going on?” Felicity asked. There were no security cameras to hack in the warehouse they had gone to investigate and Felicity hated feeling like she was in the dark.

She’d had to repeat her inquiry twice, hearing nothing but a confusing babble of noise, before Oliver said, “Okay, maybe this isn’t our sort of thing.”

-

“So what you’re saying is, we’ve got two dead bodies and our suspect is a ghost,” Felicity said after Oliver, Diggle, and Roy returned.

The full story went something like this: They had seen a man in the warehouse, snooping around, but before they could get to him something else did. Roy swore it had been the flickering image of a person with a knife, but all Oliver would agree to was that the man had bled out from an apparent slash to the throat before they could help him. Diggle had called 911 but the three of them hightailed it out of there before they got caught lingering at a crime scene.

“That’s not what we’re saying,” Oliver said.

“It’s what I’m saying,” Roy said.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“I saw it!”

“We weren’t close enough to know what we saw, and the lighting was bad. It could have been anything.”

Everyone looked at Diggle to break the tie.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I know there was something there. That was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“It wasn’t a ghost,” Oliver insisted, holding each of their gazes in turn. “Two men are dead and we’re going to find their killer, okay? Because it wasn’t a ghost.”

“Because I guess we’re cops now,” Felicity said, mostly under her breath.

-

The victim turned out to be the younger brother of the first man who’d died. A coincidence seemed unlikely. Felicity was looking into their backgrounds to see if she could find anything that seemed suspicious, anything that might lead them to a possible motive or a suspect.

Her cell rang, and Felicity glanced at the screen. “It’s Laurel,” Felicity said to the others, answering the call. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Heads up,” Laurel said. “Couple of FBI agents were poking around at the police station, but they are definitely not actual FBI agents.”

“Isn’t that a crime?”

“Yes. They were asking questions about your ghost murders. I pointed them in your direction.”

“What? Laurel, why would you do that? Oliver so does not want that sort of attention, fake FBI or not.”

“I know, but trust me on this. There’s something about these guys. I think they know what they’re doing, even if their federal agent impersonations could use some work. Besides, my dad can barely wrap his head around vigilantes, let alone possible ghosts. Help me out here.”

This had all the makings of a disaster, but Felicity knew she was weak when it came to pleading friends. “Fine, I’ll tell Oliver,” she said. “But you totally owe me.”

“I so do,” Laurel agreed. “You’re the best.”

“That’s what I always say,” Felicity said to herself as she ended the call, swiveling in her chair to face Oliver. “So… We’re gonna entertain some fake FBI agents, that cool with you?”

Oliver narrowed his eyes. “What,” he said, completely level and lacking in inflection.

“They’re investigating the murders, apparently. Two guys pretending to be FBI agents. Laurel sent them to Verdant, to help.” Or to get them out of Captain Lance’s hair, but, you know. Same difference.

“Because the Arrow is known for seeking help from strange men impersonating federal agents?”

“First time for everything?” When Oliver didn’t relent, Felicity said, “Whatever, they don’t have to know about the Arrow. Just be Oliver.”

“Who looks into murders?”

“You’re formerly rich and currently unemployed, so, bored and eccentric. They’ll believe it.” Probably. Maybe. Hopefully they just wouldn’t care.

-

Felicity, Oliver, Diggle, and Roy met the two men by the bar in Verdant, as it went without saying that Oliver wasn’t about to let them go downstairs. The fake agents were cute, though Felicity couldn’t help but make note of the distinctly non-regulation hair the taller guy was sporting. Had he actually thought he could pass for an FBI agent looking like that? They had to be amateurs.

“Felicity,” she said, walking towards them and offering her hand. “I believe you met our friend, Laurel Lance?”

“I’m Agent Grohl and this is my partner Agent Cobain,” the stupidly tall one said as they both flashed their badges. “We were told you--”

“Seriously?” Roy interrupted. “Grohl and Cobain? That’s what you’re going with?”

The men exchanged glances. “I’m not sure what you--”

“Those have got to be the most obvious undercover names I’ve ever heard. You might as well call yourselves Mulder and Scully.”

The shorter one (but still kind of ridiculously tall, Felicity noted, it was just that the other guy would make anyone look miniature in comparison) fidgeted. Felicity took the opportunity to swipe his badge away from him.

“Hey,” he protested, but Felicity flipped the case open and raised the ID in front of her eyes.

Okay. It wasn’t _completely_ terrible, but it would never hold up to any sort of inspection. Amateur work to anyone who knew what to look for. (Felicity would plead the fifth if asked why she would know about such a thing.) “Also, this is awful. Clearly fake. What did you do, make it in the car on the drive over?”

“No one ever wants to actually look at them,” the shorter one said defensively before addressing his partner. “I told you that hot lawyer chick was onto us.”

The giant one pursed his lips and then said, “What do you guys want? How about you let us go on our way, okay? We’re not here to make any trouble.”

“No, just to commit fraud,” Diggle said, arms crossed.

“If you wanted to arrest us, why let us leave the station?”

“We aren’t going to arrest you,” Oliver said. “We just want to know who you are and what you think you’re doing in our city.”

After a short pause in which the two men seemed to be having an unspoken conversation, the taller one said, “I’m Sam Winchester and this is my brother Dean. We’re investigating the murders, that’s all. We look into… odd cases. Try to help. That’s the truth, I swear.”

There was something about his earnestness that made Felicity believe him, or at least want to believe him. He was vaguely reminiscent of an enormous puppy. “How odd are we talking?”

Sam and Dean exchanged glances again. “Mulder and Scully odd.”

“I told you!” Roy exclaimed. “It was a ghost, I saw it. Oliver refuses to admit it.”

“Oliver?” Sam asked, looking more closely at Oliver. “Oliver Queen? As in, billionaire, stranded on an island for five years Oliver Queen?”

“Now it’s more like, unemployed, ex-billionaire, stranded on an island for five years Oliver Queen, but, yeah, basically,” Oliver said.

“What does that make these guys, then? The hired help?”

“The ones who don’t mind that I can’t afford to sign any paychecks anymore.”

“And you guys… What? Solve crime? Out of a club?” Dean asked.

“Something like that,” Felicity said, noting how Oliver’s posture was stiffening as he grew more uncomfortable with the questions. “We’re just trying to make Starling City safer.”

“We mostly work pro bono,” Diggle added.

Dean nodded. “We know how that goes.”

“Uh, so, the ghost?” Roy said. “Can we talk about the ghost now?”

“It wasn’t a ghost!” Oliver insisted.

“Why don’t you explain what you saw?” Sam suggested diplomatically. “We just want to figure out what happened.”

So they ran through the story again, with as much detail as they could remember. Felicity added in everything she had been able to learn about the victims.

“Great, thanks,” Sam said after they’d exhausted everything they could think of. “We’ll be in touch.”

“You’ll be in touch?” Felicity said before Oliver could explode. “Okay, I’m sorry, but that isn’t going to work for us. This is our city, and it was our case.” Not that she’d supported them taking it on, but, that was irrelevant. “You aren’t doing this without us.”

“It isn’t really a--” Dean tried before Oliver interrupted him.

“Either you work with us, or you’re gone.”

Dean seemed uncertain as to whether he wanted to get into a fight about this or not, but he was kept from coming to a decision by Sam, who said, “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t always have time to keep up with the news, but this is the same Starling City that has a vigilante, right? The Arrow?”

It felt like everyone was holding their breath until Oliver finally gritted out, “Yes.”

But Sam only said, “Huh.”

Felicity decided that while these guys may be on the lazy side where it came to their FBI impersonations, they certainly weren’t stupid. She wondered how long they’d been at this ghost hunting thing.

“We’re going to check out the crime scene,” Dean told them. “See what we can find. We’ve got the living brother’s address, so afterwards we’re going to stop by and ask him a few questions.”

“I’ll come, too,” Oliver said.

“Because Oliver Queen usually tags along with the FBI on murder investigations?”

Dean had a point, and Felicity could tell that Oliver knew it. That didn’t mean he was happy about it. “Give me your phone,” she said, holding her hand out until Dean obliged. She programmed in her number before giving it back to Dean. “Call us with updates.”

He hesitated but then he simply said, “Will do.”

“Want me to fix these while you’re out?” Felicity offered, waving Dean’s fake FBI ID. “Give me yours, too, Sam, I’ll make you better ones.”

“I don’t even want to know that you can do that,” Oliver said, pained.

He would if he didn’t wear a hood and a mask, Felicity knew, but she let it go. “Well, boys?”

“Uh, sure, yeah, I guess,” Sam said, handing her his badge.

Felicity smiled brightly at them. “Great!”

-

Dean actually did call her on the way from the crime scene to see the victims’ brother (Nick Wilkinson, for the record). Sounding like an extra from Ghostbusters, he basically confirmed that yes, they likely were looking at a ghost for their number one suspect.

Roy might have made a tiny fist pump where Oliver couldn’t see him.

“I guess we should be glad Laurel sent them our way,” Felicity said. “I’m not sure the Starling City PD is equipped to deal with ghosts.”

“I don’t think Captain Lance’s heart is, either,” Diggle said.

Unfortunately true, Felicity knew, holding back a wince.

She didn’t like this waiting game, forced to let the Winchesters take the lead while they just hoped for some way to help moving forward. Then again, Felicity didn’t have much of a clue what one did when on the trail of a ghost.

To pass the time, she continued working on the new badges and searched for information about Sam and Dean.

She didn’t like what she found.

Sam and Dean Winchester had a frightening criminal history, filled with arrests and murders and even their apparent deaths. “Oh my God,” she murmured to herself, glad that Oliver had busied himself with Roy and Diggle, working off some steam by training. He was likely to get the mask and the bow if he saw what was currently on Felicity’s monitors.

The only thing that kept her from calling the authorities was the whole dying thing. Multiple times? Some of the news stories contradicted each other. There was no way even half of this could be true. Of course, less than half was still enough to be cause for major concern.

The thing was, Felicity just couldn’t believe the men she had met were capable of any of this. Well, maybe the grave robbing. She wasn’t entirely sure what ghost hunters did, but she could imagine it might involve cemeteries.

The rest of it, though? Couldn’t be true. Could it? They had just seemed so… honest, and helpful, and trustworthy. Felicity liked to think she was a good judge of character, and she knew that the picture painted of a person by the media wasn’t necessarily the truth. Just look at Oliver.

She would watch them, and stay wary, and when she got them alone she would ask. She would know if they were lying to her.

Not long after, Dean called again. “We’ve got nothing,” he told her. “The brother was no help. Couldn’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt his family, no strange occurrences, yada yada.”

“He was hiding something,” came Sam’s voice.

“They’re always hiding something. Until we can get him to tell us what it is, we’re gonna have to look somewhere else.”

“Luckily for you, I am amazing at research. I’ll do some digging,” Felicity said.

“Awesome, you and Sam can be besties.”

Sam said, “There are worse things to bond over than a shared affinity for the art of research.”

A smile was pulling at Felicity’s mouth. “Ghost hunting, for example?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it,” Dean said. “We’ll see you back at the club.”

The club, not what was beneath it, because Oliver had made very clear that there was no way Sam and Dean were getting down there. Which meant that rather than sit at her state of the art computer station to research, Felicity carried her laptop upstairs and sat down at the bar to wait.

Sigh.

Two minutes later, Oliver came up the stairs and sat down next to her. “Meeting Sam and Dean again?”

Felicity didn’t look up from her laptop. “Why, jealous?”

“I’d rather you not be alone with them.”

“Oh my God, Oliver, they’re ghost hunters, not axe murderers.” Felicity paused. She hoped, anyway. “Ghost hunters are definitely safer than axe murderers, for the record.”

Oliver refused to budge, unsurprisingly, but it wasn’t like he was bothering her so Felicity let him be. Maybe it was for the best, too - Felicity didn’t really believe the stories she’d read were true, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

By the time the brothers arrived, she was pretty sure she’d found the ghost they were looking for, and she said as much to Sam and Dean.

Dean looked at Sam and then said, “What?”

“I found your ghost,” Felicity repeated. “At least, I think I did. No, I did. Has to be. Sorry, are you sad I did your research for you? Should I have waited?”

“Can we have you? We’ve got a bunker. It’s nice.”

“She isn’t for sale,” Oliver butted in, one of his more formidable scowls overtaking his face.

“No, but I am possibly for loan, particularly when it’s to handsome men who tell me frequently how wonderful I am.” As long as they didn’t actually kill people. She’d have to get the final word on that first.

“That’s definitely us,” Dean confirmed.

Oliver was starting to look like he was questioning his no killing people policy so Felicity decided the best course of action was probably to just tell Sam and Dean what she had discovered. “Lucy Hale. Lived across the street from the Wilkinson brothers until her death in 2006. She was 17, same as Nick. They all went to school together.”

“Does it say how she died?” Dean asked, leaning in over Felicity’s shoulder.

“Suicide,” Felicity said, biting her lip. Yeah, this really wasn’t their sort of thing. She was glad it wasn’t - she wasn’t sure she could bury herself in the ghosts of teenage suicide victims every day.

A muscle in Sam’s jaw tightened but otherwise neither of the brothers reacted. This _was_ their sort of thing, death and tragedy and horror, ghosts and nightmares and monsters under the bed. “What are we thinking? The brothers tormented her, she killed herself, and now she wants revenge?”

“Sounds about right,” Dean said.

“Sounds about right?” Felicity repeated. “In what world does that ‘sound about right’?”

“Ours.”

“Well… Well, that sucks!”

“Yeah, it does,” Dean agreed. “But this is just how things work. This is how our lives work. I’m sorry if it’s hard for you to understand, and honestly, you’re taking it better than most, but this is what we do. If you want to help, you’re gonna have to deal.”

Felicity turned back to her laptop, her eyes settling on the image of Lucy Hale. Pale, brown hair, freckles, long nose… and so, so young. She felt Oliver move closer to her as if offering his silent support and she knew that if she bailed, Oliver would back her up. He wouldn’t like it, but he would do it.

Felicity raised her head and faced Sam and Dean. “I want to help.”

-

“Okay, I know I may have been a willing participant in activities of dubious legality--”

“Like vigilantism? Or making fake IDs?” Roy suggested.

Felicity leveled a quick glare at him. “Not helping. My point is, I may have to draw the line at _grave-robbing_.”

Apparently when Felicity had said she wanted to continue helping Sam and Dean, that meant helping them dig up a corpse. She couldn’t say she was altogether pleased at discovering she was right about the veracity of the grave-robbing claims in those reports she’d found.

“Fine, we’ll do it without you,” Dean said.

“Works for me,” Oliver said. It was a toss-up as to who was more surprised by the fact he had just agreed with Dean - Dean, or Oliver himself. “I just mean, we can do it without you, Felicity. It could be dangerous.”

“Yeah, it could be, and who invited you?”

“Did you forget the part where I said this is my city and you aren’t doing this without me?”

Dean and Oliver stood there having their own silent pissing contest while Sam sighed and said, “Dean, stop fighting. It’s not often we get people willing and able to give us a hand.”

“I’m coming too,” Diggle said.

“And me,” Roy added.

Dean threw up his hands. “Fine! Should I just invite the entire damn city? We’ll make a party of it!”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Sam said, sounding long-suffering.

“So, we’ll go with Sam and Dean, and you can--” Oliver stopped, but Felicity knew what he had been going to say. He’d been about to tell her that she could monitor them from Verdant, only he couldn’t say that without essentially admitting that he was the Arrow and they were his team.

Felicity was fairly certain the Winchesters had already guessed as much, but for Oliver to confirm it was another thing entirely. “I can come with you,” she finished instead.

Oliver gaped at her. “But you said--”

“I know what I said, and I changed my mind.” Damned if she was going to stay behind and do nothing, like she needed protecting.

“Sounds good to me,” Diggle said, smiling at her.

She smiled back, grateful.

Oliver still seemed to want to argue but Dean said, “Whatever, what’s one more body? She’ll go, we’ll all go. Let’s get one thing straight, first-- every one of you is going to do what Sam and I tell you. I’m not having your blood on my hands.”

Silence descended. For a moment Felicity thought Oliver would actually refuse, that he would insist on controlling what happened next in spite of being way out of his depth. Finally, however, Oliver nodded, conceding to the Winchesters’ experience in the matter. “Agreed.”

-

Grave-robbing, it turned out, was something you did at night, which Felicity decided seemed sensible. To pass the time they ordered Chinese and sat around talking. Well, most of them did. Oliver had inhaled some Kung Pao chicken and now was sulking in the background and darting suspicious glances over at Sam and Dean, like he was a disgruntled kid and they had stolen his friends.

Roy was asking, “Is it just ghosts? Or is everything real? Do you guys go after, I don’t know, vampires and stuff, too?”

“Vampires, werewolves, demons, succubi, shapeshifters… If you can think of it, we’ve probably seen it,” Sam told them.

“Awesome. I mean, scary.”

“All right, so, how does one become a monster hunter?” Felicity asked as she cracked open a fortune cookie. _You will live an adventurous life,_ the fortune read. She snorted and passed it to Diggle, who laughed.

“Family business,” Dean replied.

Diggle said, “What, like a restaurant?Your dad pulls you to the side and says, ‘son, one day this how-to book about getting rid of poltergeists will be yours’?”

Dean looked uncomfortable but he said, “Yeah, kind of.”

“That’s messed up,” Roy said, taking the last egg roll.

Sam chuckled in a knowing sort of way. “It is.”

Felicity couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of it, that there was this whole other world she had never known about, a world where the monsters under your bed were real, and that a father could actually encourage his children to spend their lives chasing them. How many times must they have risked their lives for others? “But how could he want you to do something so dangerous?”

“He didn’t want this life for us; he didn’t even want it for himself. He didn’t choose it. Hunting… it chooses you.”

That sounded depressing, but Felicity figured there was probably some tragic story in there somewhere that she didn’t know, and, honestly, didn’t have the right to know.

Then again, she thought, who didn’t have a tragic backstory?

-

Lucy Hale’s grave was marked with a small stone and fresh flowers, indicating that someone came by regularly to replace them. Her parents, perhaps. It made Felicity sad to think of it.

Sam and Dean had grabbed shovels out of the trunk of their admittedly kind of badass old school Chevy Impala. Also a couple of shotguns loaded with rock salt and some iron rods, which they distributed around. Felicity was clutching hers now. She wasn’t sure what it would do for her, exactly, but the brothers seemed confident so she was going with it.

They were eager to get this over with as quickly as possible so that Lucy’s ghost wouldn’t have time to complete her mission of vengeance against the Wilkinsons. Sam and Dean claimed that salting and burning the remains would break the tether keeping her in the world and since they were the experts, that was the plan they were going with.

Still, though. Digging up some poor girl’s body so they could set fire to her bones? It didn’t feel right. Felicity kept looking over her shoulder, half-expecting to see Starling City’s finest striding over to arrest them.

Instead she tried to focus on the boys as they took turns with the shovels. It wasn’t a bad view, truth be told. She had half-heartedly offered to assist but everyone had ignored her, and Felicity hadn’t offered again. It wasn’t like she actually wanted to get in there and labor inside a grave.

Nope, she was fine watching, she -

Something flickered into view, a person, only it wasn’t substantial like a person and you couldn’t quite focus on it.

“Ghost!” Felicity shouted, scrambling up to her feet. “Ghost!”

Sam and Dean had already reacted, aiming the shotguns toward the ghostly form of Lucy as it sort of faded in and out. Dean fired, hitting the ghost square in its chest with a spray of rock salt. It vanished.

“Are you okay?” Oliver asked, immediately by Felicity’s side, his hand on her shoulder.

“Fine,” she said, stunned but perfectly unhurt.

“Dig faster,” Sam commanded Diggle and Roy, whose heads weren’t even visible above the grave anymore. He and Dean were prowling around the perimeter, as if keeping watch for Lucy’s ghost.

“Will she come back?”

“Hopefully we’ll have chased her off for long enough to get to the remains,” Dean said. “The stronger the ghost, the faster they can recover.”

Felicity wasn’t sure she wanted to know how strong the Winchesters thought this particular ghost was.

“Got it!” A shout came from inside the grave.

Sam glanced to Dean before entrusting Oliver with his gun and crouching down at the side of the hole. “Can you open the coffin?”

“Yeah, let me,” Diggle said, and after a second Roy came climbing out, accepting Sam’s hand. Another moment passed, then Diggle joined him above ground.

Sam reached for a box of salt but before he could dump it over the side onto the corpse, Lucy reappeared.

The ghost materialized in front of Felicity and Oliver, startling Felicity into a gasp.

“Sam!” Dean shouted. He couldn’t shoot the ghost again for fear of hitting Felicity or Oliver, but Oliver pulled Felicity out of the way before aiming with his own gun.

As he pulled the trigger, Lucy was gone again. Oliver swore.

Felicity blinked, opening her eyes to the ghost again. She looked young and small and scared, not like a killer. Felicity brandished her iron pole but she didn’t swing it.

“Help me,” the ghost said, right before she burst into flames. She screamed as she was consumed, and then there was nothing left, not even ash.

Felicity was shaking, the iron falling from her slackened grip. Dean was there, he was saying something to her, but Felicity couldn’t see anything but the poor dead girl burned into her memory until Oliver’s face moved into her focus.

“Felicity,” he said, gazing into her eyes and holding her shoulders. “Felicity, did it hurt you?”

“No,” she managed to say. “No, she didn’t touch me. She was scared, Oliver. She was just scared and lost.”

Oliver didn’t say anything, still looking at her with concern. Felicity felt stupid, like the damsel in this situation, even if she hadn’t needed any help. She shouldn’t have come. She wished she had never seen Lucy Hale because she knew she would never forget her face.

-

The Winchester brothers, it seemed, weren’t ones to stick around after the conclusion of a case. Outside the cemetery, they packed up the Impala and prepared to head back out onto the road. The men all shook hands and said their goodbyes, but Felicity broke apart from her friends when they headed back to their car and instead joined Sam and Dean.

She handed them the new IDs she had made. “Considering the time crunch I was under, they aren’t perfect, but they should serve you better than those atrocities you were making do with.”

Sam smiled. “Thanks, Felicity. We appreciate it.”

Felicity fidgeted, holding her arms behind her back. “So… I read some things about you. On the internet. Some, uh, bad things.”

The Winchesters didn’t flinch, but they exchanged a loaded look before Dean addressed Felicity. “And you didn’t turn us in?”

“I didn’t believe it. I’m not sure why, but I trust you. I think you’re good people. Am I wrong?”

Dean had the prettiest green eyes and it was certainly something to be the focus of that intense gaze. “We’ve had some run-ins with the law, that much is true. What we do, well, it isn’t strictly legal. But Felicity, we kill monsters, that’s it. Anything you read-- that isn’t us. We don’t hurt anything that doesn’t deserve it.”

Felicity touched her hand to his arm because she knew, she just knew, that he was being honest with her. After everything she had seen, she knew. Sam and Dean Winchester were good people who maybe got unfairly judged sometimes for the things they had to do to keep people safe. “I know,” she said.

Relief flooded Dean’s expression. “Offer’s still open, if you want to come be our... our girl Friday. You can meet Charlie, you’d like her.” He looked Felicity up and down. “She’d _really_ like you.”

“Dean,” Sam said reprovingly.

“Hey, just giving her the option. We’ve got an angel, too, if that makes a difference.”

“A what? No, never mind, I’m not sure I want to know,” Felicity said. “I’m flattered by the offer, really, thank you, but... no, thanks. I mean, I’m not saying that things don’t get pretty messy around here, but ghosts and monsters? You can have it. I don’t...” Lucy Hale flashed before Felicity’s eyes, saying, _help me,_ and Felicity held back a shudder. “I don’t know how you do it.”

Sam’s endearing face tightened a little, his smile forced. “Someone’s got to, right?”

“Right,” Felicity said, and thought of Oliver.

“Yeah, well, you change your mind, you got our number,” Dean said.

“I do.”

“Or if you need anything. You run into anything weird, you call us.”

“I will,” Felicity promised, and wondered whether Barry and his meta-humans counted as weird. “And if you want any more fake IDs that will actually hold up under inspection, you let me know.”

His expression lightening, Sam added, “In the meantime, keep fighting the good fight with... Oliver Queen.”

Felicity adjusted her glasses. They so knew. Damn it. “Is it that obvious?”

Laughing, Sam said, “It was pretty obvious.”

“Well, I guess I can trust you boys to keep a secret.” Felicity hugged each of them in turn, rising up on her toes to give them both a kiss on the cheek.

She stood in the street and watched them drive off, the Impala rumbling away into the distance, and then walked to rejoin her team. Oliver was trying (and failing) to look nonchalant and like he didn’t care one bit what she’d been talking to Sam and Dean about.

“Thought you might abandon us,” Diggle said, opening the car door for her. “Do you think they’re prettier than we are?”

Felicity laughed and said, “Never,” perfectly content to give up ghosts and return to some good old-fashioned, occasionally enhanced, frequently masked, criminals.

**_ End _ **


End file.
